Posts Tagged ‘Automates’

Halcyon Software, a global leader in multi-platform systems management software, today announced the release of the latest version of MQ Manager with an enhanced graphical user interface that improves the management of IBM WebSphere MQ Server environments. A configurable dashboard automates the delivery of key performance and availability metrics that can be accessed by authorised personnel from any internet-enabled location using tablets, laptops, desktops and smartphones. It will help to ensure that IT resources are operating to peak efficiency, prevent business disruption and reduce the costs of managing IT infrastructures.

Access to real-time information in a format that is highly visible and easy to understand will provide organisations with a more accurate view of the status of the whole infrastructure and minimise business risk by ensuring that the flow of data is not disrupted, commented Carole Chandler, Sales and Marketing Director at Halcyon Software. These enhancements to MQ Manager have been developed in response to customer requests for an easy way to share information across multiple users regardless of their location.

This latest release automates the monitoring of all key components of IBM WebSphere: MQ Queue Manager, MQ Listeners, MQ Channels, MQ Queues, MQ Services, MQ Cluster Manager Status and MQ Events. It provides a dashboard overview of message queues being monitored in real-time along with other system and performance metrics. Users can customise the dashboard to meet individual business or operational requirements with a selection of dial, chart and line widgets and traffic light status displays. It provides early warnings of impending problems that could impact the business and enables users to manage their responsibilities more efficiently.

MQ Manager proactively checks for impending problems and automatically generates alerts should events such as the breaching of predetermined thresholds, bottlenecks and other issues preventing data from reaching its required destination. It enables IT resources to be reallocated to maximise business efficiencies by eliminating the need for IT staff to manually check statuses. The system also gathers performance data for use in planning, analysis and reporting processes.

MQ Manager is immediately available and is quick and easy to deploy with best practice example rules already configured to monitor IBM WebSphere MQ Server environments regardless of the destination platform.

Mainframe operators using BMC software may now be able to enjoy the speedy, devops-style development pace that is quickly becoming the norm for customer-facing mobile applications and Internet services.

BMC has released a plug-in for its Control-M batch control software that it claims can cut the time required to make a change in a business workflow by up to 80 percent.

Workload Change Manager “allows customers to dramatically reduce the time it takes to roll out an application,” said Gur Steif, BMC vice president of workload automation. “It allows application developers to request changes using a simple automated tool. It validates the requests, and automates the process of rolling out the changes to production.”

Today, customers of an organization may expect their apps and services to be updated continually. As a result, many development shops have adopted a devops (developer-operator) methodology, which calls for closer communication between developers and administrators to speed development time.

Devops has been slow to arrive to the world of mainframes and other batch-oriented back-end systems, however. The processes for updating the workflow running on backend systems is still largely a manual one, Steif explained.

BMC’s Control-M is a workload automation tool most widely used to control to timing of complex business processes running on enterprise software systems, such as SAP and Oracle’s Peoplesoft.

For instance Control-M could be used to control to collect external files from multiple business partner companies and submit them to an inventory management system, and then use the results to order needed items from external suppliers.

Originally this batch process software was designed for mainframes, but it is increasingly used for commodity server-based distributed workloads as well.

Typically, when a developer changes a workflow, the changes are written on paper or an electronic document, often known as a “change ticket.” Such change tickets passed to the administrator, who reviews the changes, and makes the adjustments to the live system.

Many times, this process of altering a workflow by hand involves multiple rounds of exchanges between the developer and the administrator. “An update can take weeks or months to get done,” Steif said.

The new Change Manager plug-in for Control-M offers a visual palette that developers can use to design and redesign their workflows using drag-and-drop components.

The software automatically enforces system rules set by the administrator, and will automatically let the developer know if a certain procedure is not possible, given the organization’s policies or the limitations of the system itself. BMC estimates that 40 percent of all developer change tickets are rejected due to a developer being unaware of some constraint.

Change Manager also keeps a track of all changes made, for record-keeping purposes.

Control-M is one of a number of batch scheduler software programs specifically designed to handle large enterprise software, such as ERP (enterprise resource planning) applications. Competitors include Advanced Systems Concepts’ ActiveBatch, CA’s Autosys, and IBM’s Tivoli Workload Scheduler.

Control-M Workload Change Manager is available now, starting at about US$10,000, depending on the size and complexity of the environment.

Microsoft has updated its automated software development tools to the new Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) 2012, and in a sign it wants to push its cloudy productivity has added the ability to automate Office 365 deployments.

Details are sketchy at present, but the download page for the software promises “Comprehensive tools and guidance to efficiently manage large-scale deployments of Windows 7 and Microsoft Office 365.” That’s a step up from the “Office 365 Assessment Report” offered in the tool’s predecessor, the Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit, which did little more than check if PCs were capable of running Office 365.

New support for System Center 2012 Configuration Manager
Integration with Microsoft Diagnostics and Recovery Toolset 7 (DaRT) and Security Compliance Manager (SCM)
Support for Windows 8 Consumer Preview in a lab environment
Support for Windows Server 2012 Beta

There’s no explanation offered, among the various pages about MDT, about just what constitutes a “lab” environment, in terms of either the number of machines allowed or the functionality afforded.